Love thy neighbour, nay thy self!

If the flow of time could be reversed as easily as the vagaries of the human heart this blog post would have been published on the eve of Valentine’s Day just as the excesses of human emotions were starting to flood social media. Alas we are all but puppets in the hands of fate! And so here we are…

Let us then rewind time and imagine that it was the night before Valentine’s Day and the cockles of hearts of all the lovers around the world were red hot with passion.

And the Lord looked down upon his flock and said “Love thy neighbour!”

Well our nearest neighbour is our very own self reflected in the mirror! So on this day of all days, instead of going to great lengths to profess your undying love for your better half, stand in front of a mirror and proclaim your love for yourself! And neither in a narcissistic manner nor in a megalomaniacal manner but rather with genuine sincerity! For that is the one love story that even the great bard himself did not dare to write about. And maybe, just maybe, even our creator himself could have been equally confused as to what to do after he had created man!

In Genesis 2:18–25, it is written that God noted that “it is not good for the man to be alone.” Whereas it took God only one line to form man, God spent several lines to create woman!

Woah! Hold on a minute!

Every woman is an enigma unique unto herself. So there is a good possibility here that God just got it wrong! After all He did create mankind in “our” image and likeness. What if God, the King of Heaven, and his heavenly court is actually filled with asexual divine entities just bored out of their wits. And what better entertainment could ever have been invented but the game of love?

Fine, let us not get carried away by theology here. The roots of love are deep within our biology and are nurtured by our intelligence. It serves a critical role in the propagation of the species and even monogamy is not unique to our species. A number of other species, penguins, swans, beavers, wolves, to name a few mate for life. But then asexual reproduction is equally prevalent in nature. And even though it is the only means of reproduction for single celled organisms such as archaea and bacteria, many eukaryotic organisms including plants, animals, and fungi can also reproduce asexually. In vertebrates, the most common form of asexual reproduction is parthenogenesis, which is typically used as an alternative to sexual reproduction in times when reproductive opportunities are limited (Reproduced from Wikipedia).

So then why is self love frowned upon in almost all human cultures if not considered outright immoral. Why is vanity a sin? Yes, homo sapiens are social animals and as such cooperation in the human society would be impossible to achieve if not for acts of selfless love. But how can we be certain that the same level of cooperation would not be possible within a group of narcissistic individuals very invested in their individual survival?

On the contrary the very core tenets that form the basis of modern human civilisation have resulted in genocide and many more acts on unimaginable depravity. Consequently, we find ourselves being pushed off the edge of a precipice due to the unavoidable effects of causality. So, as we start falling down towards our impending doom let us put aside our fears and instead take a moment to profess our true love for our self! Let us forgive ourselves for the trespasses committed against ourselves whilst subscribing to a synthetic moral code that has been abused for millennia by the few evil souls that truly despise their own existence. Maybe then the untimely demise of our species would serve as a grim warning for the creator to let chaos reign supreme!

Amen!